Abstract
Philosophers who contribute new ideas to philosophical discourse are commonly caught by and within the vocabulary which has controlled that discourse before them. Their new ideas must be stated either in the terms already used by philosophers, but with specific notice given of the new way in which they are being used, or in newly coined technical terms which, unfortunately, must be defined and explicated using the available vocabulary. Husserl understood himself as advancing a new theory of intentionality which avoided central difficulties in the theories of intentionality, esp. Brentano’s, known to him. Husserl first explicitly develops his theory of intentionality in the Logical Investigations,1 whose first edition was published in 1900-01. The fifth investigation, entitled “On Intentional Experiences and Their ‘Contents’,” presents Husserl’s detailed analysis of intentionality, distinguishes it from Brentano’s, and initiates an account of knowledge in terms of intentionality, a project which is continued in the sixth investigation. The presentation of the Investigations, even while disagreeing with Brentano, extends Brentano’s notion of what is best called “descriptive psychology.” Husserl, however, soon came to recognize that phenomenology could not properly be conceived merely as a descriptive psychology and that a descriptive psychology was unable to address adequately problems surrounding the nature of cognition. Consequently, he moved beyond descriptive psychology to an explicitly transcendental phenomenology.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Reference
Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik, ed. Elmar Holenstein, Husserliana XVIII; Zweiter Band Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer, Husserliana XIX/1–2 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975, 1984); Logical Investigations, trans. J. N. Findlay, (2 vols., London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970). Following what has now become standard practice, references to Husserliana throughout this book will be abbreviated as “Hua” followed by the volume number, references to available translations will follow references to the German editions.
Edmund Husserl, Die Idee der Phänomenologie: Fünf Vorlesungen, ed. Walter Biemel, Husserliana II (2nd ed., Den Haag Martinus Nijhoff, 1973); The Idea of Phenomenology, trans. William P. Alston and George Nakhnikian (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970).
Edmund Husserl, Ding und Raum: Vorlesungen 1907, ed. Ulrich Claesges, Husserliana XVI ( Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973 ).
Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Philosophie. Erstes Buch Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana III/1 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976); Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, tr. Fred Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1983).
For Gurwitsch’s criticism of Husserl, his development of the notion of the perceptual noema, and his generalization of the perceptual noema to other noemata, cf. esp. The Field of Consciousness (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1964), pp. 155–279; “Some Aspects and Developments of Gestalt Psychology, trans. Richard M. Zaner;” “On the Intentionality of Consciousness;” “On the Object of Thought” (the restored version of which is contained in this volume); “Phenomenology of Thematics and the Pure Ego: Studies of the Relation between Gestalt Theory and Phenomenology,” trans. Fred Kersten; “Contribution to the Phenomenological Theory of Perception,” trans. Fred Kersten; all of which appear in Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966), pp. 3–55, 124–40, 141–47, 175286, 332–49. Cf. also ‘Perceptual Coherence as the Foundation of the Judgment of Predication“ and ”Husserl’s Theory of the Intentionality of Consciousness in Historical Perspective,“ both of which appear in Phenomenology and the Theory of Science, ed. Lester Embree (Evanston: Northwestern University Press), pp. 241–267 and 210–240. The last article is a revision of a paper with the same title which appeared in Phenomenology and Existentialism, eds. E. N. Lee and M. Mandelbaum (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), pp. 25–57; it has also subsequently appeared in an abbreviated version as ”Husserl’s Theory of the Intentionality of Consciousness“ in Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science, ed. Hubert Dreyfus with Harrison Hall ( Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 1984 ), pp. 59–71.
Gurwitsch, The Field of Consciousness, p. 227.
Cf. Hubert L. Dreyfus, ‘The Perceptual Noema: Gurwitsch’s Crucial Contribution,“ Life-World and Consciousness: Essays for Aron Gurwitsch,ed. Lester Embree (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972), pp. 135–70, revised as ”Husserl’s Perceptual Noema,“ Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science,pp. 97–123. Cf. also David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre, Husserl and Intentionality: A Study of Mind, Meaning and Language (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1984), pp. 157–67. But for a different reading, cf. John J. Drummond, Husserlian Intentionality and Non-Foundational Realism: Noema and Object (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), esp. §§12–18 and 26–31.
The claim regarding Frege’s influence on Husserl was advanced in Husserl und Frege (Oslo: I. Kommisjon Hos H. Aschehong and Co., 1958) and Fgllesdal’s interpretation of the noema was first advanced in “Husserl’s Notion of Noema,” The Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969): 680–87, reprinted in Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science, pp. 73–80. This view was developed and expanded in Smith and McIntyre’s Husserl and Intentionality.
Smith and McIntyre, Husserl and Intentionality,p. 88.
Smith and McIntyre, Husserl and Intentionality,p. 154.
For this contrast between object-theories and mediator-theories, cf. Smith and McIntyre, Husserl and Intentionality,p. 40.
Cf. esp. Richard Holmes, “An Explication of Husserl’s Theory of the Noema,” Research in Phenomenology 5 (1975): 143–53; Lenore Langsdorf, “The Noema as Intentional Entity: A Critique of Follesdal,” Review of Metaphysics 37 (1984): 757–84; Robert Sokolowski, “Intentional Analysis and the Noema,” Dialectica 38 (1984): 113–29, and “Husserl and Frege,” The Journal of Philosophy 84 (1987): 521–28; and Rudolf Bernet, “Husserls Begriff des Noema,” Husserl-Ausgabe und Husserl-Forschung, ed. Samuel Usseling (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), pp. 61. 80.
Cf. Robert Sokolowski, Husserlian Meditations: How Words Present Things (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974, and Presence and Absence: A Philosophical Investigation of Language and Being ( Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978 ).
a. J. N. Mohanty, Missed and Fiege (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982 ); and “Intentionality and Noema” and “Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenology and Essentialism,” both in The Possibility of Transcendental Philosophy ( Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985 ).
Cf. Donn Welton, The Origins of Meaning: A Critical Study of the Thresholds of Husserlian Phenomenology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1983); and Mary Jeanne Larrabee. Donn Welton, The Origins of Meaning: A Critical Study of the Thresholds of Husserlian Phenomenology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1983); and Mary Jeanne Larrabee, “The Noema in Husserl’s Phenomenology,” Husserl Studies 3 (1986): 209–30.
Drummond, Husserlian Intentionality and Non-Foundational Realism, esp. chaps. 6–7.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Drummond, J.J., Embree, L. (1992). Introduction. In: Drummond, J.J., Embree, L. (eds) The Phenomenology of the Noema. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3425-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3425-7_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4207-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-3425-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive